Translation Prize Presentation Ceremony
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DELHI Translation Prize Presentation Ceremony Twenty-Second Translation Prizes for 2012 were presented on 23 August 2013 in an elegant function held at Sri Pitti Thyagaraja Hall, G.N. Chetty Road, T. Nagar, Chennai. The Translation Prize presentation function was organized followed by Translators’ Meet and Abhivyakti programme inviting writers from all over the country. L-R: Sreenivasarao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, Akademi President, Ashokamitran, eminent Tamil fiction writer and Chandrashekhar Kambar, Vice President, Sahitya Akademi idely publicised literary event, the programme view over organizing the ‘Translation Award Wattracted writers, translators, scholars and Presentation’ function in Chennai as Tamil language lovers of literatures from all over Tamil Nadu. is one of the ancient languages whose literature Inaugural function held in the evening on 23 has a hoary past. Sangam literature reflects the August 2013, K. Sreenivasarao, Secretary, Sahitya rich tradition and culture of the Tamils in the Akademi delivered his welcome address. very first century. Bhakti literature founded by Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, veteran Hindi poet and Alwars and Nayanmars in Tamil spread to the President of Sahitya Akademi presided over the northern part of India creating a Bhakti tradition award presentation function and presented the in the medieval period. The great Indian poet Translation Prizes to the awardees. Eminent Tamil fiction writer Ashokamitran was the chief guest; and Chandrashekhar Kambar, veteran Kannada writer and Vice-President of Sahitya Akademi delivered concluding speech and also proposed a vote of thanks. In his welcome address, Dr. Sreenivasarao mentioned that translation is one of the pivotal activities of Sahitya Akademi. He expressed his JULY-SEPTEMBER 2013 1 Subramanian Bharati, who dreamt of a unified India and liberty for women was a Tamilian—one of the few visionaries produced in the modern era. He influenced Indian writers cutting across the boundaries. Dr. Rao welcomed the chief guest, the President of the Akademi Prof. Tiwari, the Vice-President Prof. Kambar, the members of General Council of Sahitya Akademi and literature lovers. Sahitya Akademi is bound to preserve, nurture and disseminate not only creative literature but also literature in translations as well, he informed. The President of the Akademi gave away Translation Prizes to Pankaj Thakur (Assamese); Oinam Nilkantha Ashokamitran Singha (Bengali); Swarna Prabha Chainary (Bodo); Shashi Pathania (Dogri); M.L. Thangappa (English); Shalini Chandrakant Topiwala (Gujarati); Ramji Tiwari (Hindi); K.K. Nair and Ashok Kumar (Kannada); Abdul Ahad Hajini (Kashmir); Gurunath Shivaji Kelekar (Konkani); Mahendra Narayan Ram (Maithili); Anand (P. Satchidanandan) (Malayalam); Elangbam Sonamani Singh (Manipuri); Sharda Sathe (Marathi); Gita Upadhyay (Nepali); Prasanta Kumar Mohanty (Odia); Satish Kumar Verma (Punjabi); Poora Sharma ‘Pooran’ (Rajasthani); Bhagirathi Nanda (Sanskrit); Ravindra Nath Murmu (Santali); Hiro Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari Thakur (Sindhi); G. Nanjundan (Tamil); R.Venkateswara Rao (Telugu) and Ather Farouqui (Urdu). After the presentation of the prizes, Prof. Tiwari delivered his presidential address. He expressed his great pleasure in organizing this important multi-lingual literary event and its Translation Prize presentation function in a historically rich and culturally vibrant city of Chennai. Tamil language is one of the foremost languages of our nation and also the world. Tamil people greatly revere their writers in general. When he first visited Tamil Nadu 40 years ago, he found the portraits of Tiruvalluvar kept in the buses and also one of his couplets along with Chandrashekhar Kambar them. Switching over to his experiences with languages, Prof. Tiwari said that he belonged to a village in Eastern U.P. where English was alien to him. He did not even know Hindi as people of his village speak a dialect of Hindi. Translation is the part and parcel for our communication in the multilingual society. Though translation is a tough job to do but it is most necessary in a multilingual country like ours. Prime importance is given to discuss the place of mother tongues and areas pertaining to translations in Sahitya Akademi. Prof. Tiwari remarked that, “Translation is a difficult exercise, more difficult than original writing. It is a herculean task to give justice to the original in translations”. He cited examples of different K. Sreenivasarao 2 DELHI words to denote the meaning of ‘house’ in various rasas. He was skeptical about equivalent words representing the expression, to denote different taste according to the contexts, in the course of translating the text. He further added that the past century was the century of translation. A Russian author once mentioned, “We live in the time of translation that we are compelled to translate even our smiles.” Though the statement perturbed Prof. Tiwari much, one has to accept the fact that translation is inevitable to share the facts or emotions with others. Translations of our literatures are taking a major stride. At this juncture Akademi President V.P. Tiwari presenting the award to we are bound to congratulate the award winning translators– M.L. Thangappa (English) the ambassador of cultures, he concluded. The chief guest Ashokamitran in his address said that he was overwhelmed on hearing the citations of the prize winners while being read out. He could understand the amount of valuable contributions made to Indian languages and literatures by them. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in Tamil translation was the bestsellers in Tamil Nadu in 1940’s and also the stories of Rabindranath Tagore. For the past 20-30 years, despite many awards for translations were given and the encouragement provided by the institutions like Sahitya Akademi and National Book Trust, he was not sure whether translations are reaching out to people Chandrashekhar Kambar presenting the bouquet to at all. He hoped that such institutions would work hard Shashi Pathania (Dogri) to reach out to more readers even at the remote areas. This kind of efforts would encourage not only the original writers but also the translators as well. Veteran Kannada writer and Vice-President of Akademi, Prof. Kambar, in his concluding speech said, “Linguistic pluralism is the peculiarity of the sub-content. Our language shares common history, common destiny and common future in spite of ‘mutual unintelligibility’. The disastrous situation today is the use of English which is not ours. The use of English in our country is formidable; it would at some juncture swallow all our mother tongues.” Abdul Ahad Hajini (Kashmiri) receiving the award Our languages and literature emerged after the first millennium from Sanskrit in the north and Tamil in the south. The pioneers of early literature had the vision to retain from the predominant culture. Now at the time of globalization, ‘the English is the only option for survival’ is forced upon us. He appealed to the assembled writers, translators and scholars to inculcate love for mother tongues among our children and check the domination of English over our languages. He also proposed the vote of thanks. Swarna Prabha Chainary (Bodo) receiving the award JULY-SEPTEMBER 2013 3 Translators’ Meet Vairamuthu inaugurating the Abhivyakti programme In the ‘Translators’ Meet’ held on 24 August, 2013 at Platinum Jubilees Auditorium, University of Madras, Marina Campus in Chennai, the translators who received the awards shared their experiences as translators. Most Abhivyakti Programme of the translators reflected, through their presentations, their pleasures and pains in undertaking the translation The ‘Abhivyakti’ programme held on 25 August 2013 at works and selection of words in the target languages. Platinum Jubilees Auditorium, University of Madras, Marina An absolute understanding of the words in connotation Campus in Chennai is a regular feature being organized of the original languages is the most essential part by the Akademi, followed by the presentation of Translation and stupendous task for them to give the best of Prizes. More than 50 writers representing 24 languages the translations in the target languages. They are after from all over the country have been invited to read out all translating not only the works but also cultures. from their works. The programme was divided into five The deep involvement and identification with the reading sessions including the inaugural session. There were original works are the most essential aspects of the two sessions devoted to reading of poetry, two for short best translation. The ‘Translators’ Meet’ was chaired stories, one session for the presentation of papers on by Chandrasekhar Kambar, Vice-President of the the topic “Why do I write” by eminent writers. Akademi. In the welcome address by K. Sreenivasarao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, he called the ‘Abhivyakti’ programme a multicultural festival wherein the creative talents of this vast country of many languages converged in one place. It is an occasion of harvest of Indian literature in prose and poetry and fiction, he called. Krishnaswamy Nachimuthu, Convenor, Tamil Advisory Board, Sahitya Akedmi delivered his introductory address. Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari in his presidential address highlighted the fact that our mother tongues are in peril. He called every mother tongue in our country a national language. He referred to a few languages in North-East having no script but being spoken